2 guilty in murder of 9-year-old girl killed washing her dog

Shot in the back while washing her dogs outside her father’s Englewood home in 2009, 9-year-old Chastity Turner’s death became another gut-wrenching symbol of the violence plaguing the South Side neighborhood.

On Wednesday, Cook County jurors deliberated for a little more than two hours before convicting two reputed gang members from the neighborhood of killing Chastity, who lived in the Washington Park neighborhood but was visiting her father for a week after passing summer school.

“Some thugs just robbed us of an angel,” Turner’s aunt, Royennea Patty, told reporters after the verdict, though the conviction gave the family “some justice for Chastity,” she said.

Prosecutors said Kevin “Big Stupid” Stanley, 31, and Ronald Henderson, 33, had been gunning for Chastity’s father, Andre Turner, who testified at trial that he was the “shot caller” managing crack cocaine sales for the Gangster Disciples at 74th Street and South Stewart Avenue.

His faction of the gang had been feuding that summer with the Gangster Disciples from 75th Street and Normal Avenue. Turner, now 34, testified he rejected a “business proposition” from the leader of the 74th Street group, whom he knew only as Gargamel, an apparent reference to a villain from the Smurfs cartoon series.

Angered by the rejection, Gargamel decided to take over Turner’s drug spot by force, prosecutors said. On a hot evening in June 2009, Turner was in his front yard in the 7300 block of South Steward Avenue with a large group of children and adults who were tossing water balloons and socializing.

A stolen blue-green van driven by Henderson, Gargamel’s brother, sped down the block with Stanley shooting, possibly a high-powered carbine rifle, while leaning out the front passenger window, according to testimony.

“It didn’t matter who was out there,” Assistant State’s Attorney Joe Lattanzio said in his closing argument earlier Wednesday. ”...Who gets killed? The most innocent of them all.”

Chastity was washing her pit bull, Pinky, along with two other dogs, Diamond and Max, when the shooting erupted. Turner said he threw her over a fence and she began running down the driveway to the safety of the backyard when she was fatally shot.

Turner was shot in the arm and two others were also struck in the drive-by shooting.

The seven-day trial provided a glimpse into the causes of the violence that permeates one of Chicago’s deadliest neighborhoods, in this case a drug-sales dispute between fellow gang members who had long been friendly.

Stanley had previously been affiliated with Turner’s gang faction, and Chastity’s mother said she recalled seeing him there when she dropped her daughter off at the home in previous years.

“He knew her and watched her grow,” Lakeisha Edwards, the mother, said after the verdict.

Lawyers for the defendants urged jurors to reject testimony from the four eyewitnesses who said they saw either Stanley or Henderson or both inside the van, saying the shooting happened too quickly for them to get a good look.

Stanley’s attorney, Lawrence Beaumont, said his client was in a vehicle with two friends driving to East Chicago, Ind., at the time of the murder. He said the identifications of his client in police lineups were “meaningless” since all the witnesses already knew Stanley.

Mark Kusatzky, Henderson’s attorney, told jurors there was no physical evidence tying Henderson to the murder. “None, zero,” he said.

A third defendant, Davionne Whitfield, still faces trial. Witnesses testified they saw him close the sliding door as the van sped by and shots were fired.

Three more men have been arrested, and four others are being sought, in an investigation into Chicago-area "crash-and-grab" burglaries that netted the ring more than $2 million in merchandise, police said.

SPRINGFIELD -- Senate lawmakers introduced a plan Tuesday that would give Gov. Bruce Rauner the power to sweep nearly $580 million from special funds as he seeks to plug a budget hole that threatens child care services and prison workers' paychecks.

A Mundelein teenager was ordered Tuesday afternoon to remain in a juvenile detention facility at least until she's 20 years old for the murder of her 11-year-old sister, but will be released by the time she turns 21.